I had the privilege of being able to listen to Prime
Minister’s Questions live today, as I was in bed, on strike, rather than
teaching a Year Seven Class as I would ordinarily be doing.
By privilege, I do of course mean Utter Misfortune, and by
Prime Minister I mean PigShitBrainsDave.
I do occasionally read reaction and analysis to PMQs, but
wasn’t really aware of the full embarrassment of the thing. It was like listening to a bunch of
ill-informed sixth form students, with clear sociopathic tendencies, arguing over
whose mother was ugliest, while standing
in a room filled variously with lowing cattle, hyperactive geese and dying
elephants.
The centerpiece of the affair was Miliband Junior attempting
to give PSBD a grilling on his utter failure as both a politician and a human
being, but struggling to do so because of the noise. And his own limitations as
a a public debater.
Fortunately, his adversary is equally limited on substance
and was reminiscent of one of Orwell’s more successful pigs claiming that all
animals are equal but David Cameron is a more equal pig than others. Every word he says communicates not so much a
grasp of the world in which he lives, or indeed, in which the rest of us live,
but that all he really wants to do is , in the immortal (and ironic) words of
the great Jello Biafra, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill, Kill the Poor. Donkey fucking
pig felcher.
I’ll lay my cards on the table – I hate David Cameron more
than I hate Alex Ferguson, and I really hate Alex Ferguson. There are fewer people who have brought
misery to my life over the last twenty years.
I don’t hate Dave just because he’s rich, or successful, or a
Tory, although the combination is one to which I am vehemently antithetical. I
hate Dave because he clearly wants to start a class war, and return to the
glory days of workhouses, Modest Proposals and Caligula-esque social divisions.
Hence today’s strike.
I’ve been on strike today because I do a vital job for a
reasonable wage, albeit a modest wage compared to people of a comparable level
of education and training in the private sector. Along with everyone else who works in the
public sector, there are few perks to the job.
Christmas parties are not paid for, there are no bonuses. In times of
plenty, there are no massive pay rises or corporate jollies. When the financial
shit hits the fan of What The Fuck Do We Do Now, we’re the first to be smacked
in the pecuniary face.
The sole perk for most public sector workers is that there
is a reasonable pension to take the bitter edge off the approach to death as we
hit our dotage*. Private sector pensions may not be as well subsidised, but if
I worked in the private sector I would have been earning shit load more money
than I have been, and would have been able to make much larger contributions to
my own private pension. I don’t, because
I have a sense of social responsibility.
I’ve chosen to earn less than my peers, to pursue a career which means I
drive a Micra, can only afford a faux-aged Fender rather than real vintage one,
and which means my holidays are more likely to be spent in a tent I France than
a hotel in Dubai.
The usual refrain when I tell people that I’m a teacher is ‘I
couldn’t do what you do.’ If Eton-educated,
son of a millionaire, husband of minor aristocracy, former member of The
Bullingdon Club and all round parody of a ruling elite gets his way, it’ll be ‘I
wouldn’t do your job.’
Support the strikes. Do it for the kids.
*I also get great holidays. There’s
no denying it.
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